Opposites Attract (The Locklaine Boys Book 2) (3 page)

I WAS ONE OF
the rare few who absolutely loved their job. Whereas most people worked for the soul purpose of paying their bills and keeping a roof over their heads, I worked because I genuinely loved coming into my little shop every morning. But seeing as I was raised by a family full of green thumbs, it wasn’t really all that surprising.

My grandfather had opened Flora before my father had even been a gleam in his eye. He passed the shop down to my dad when it was time to retire, and my dad had eventually passed it down to me. Granted, he wasn’t really
ready
to retire. It was more like my mom forced him into it by refusing to cook or clean for him until he eventually caved, which he wisely did. It only took three days before Dad declared himself “
starving to death”
and handed the keys over to me.

I was enveloped by the bright colors and fragrant smells of some of the most beautiful, exotic flowers. How could anyone’s mood be sour when they were surrounded by such beauty on a daily basis?

I had just enough employees to handle the register and things like that, so I could spend the majority of my days designing stunning centerpieces and elegant wedding bouquets. Sure, designing wedding arrangements on the regular might have left a bit of a sore spot, seeing as my own personal love life was a complete joke, but what could you do? I put myself out there once, and it blew up in my face. Shit happens, right?

On-line dating was a no.

Blind dates were a bust.

And my fear of being left swiped, kept me away from Tinder. Needless to say, my options were limited to running into a decent-looking, polite, well-educated,
employed
man by happenstance alone. Something that seemed to be an impossibility in New York.

I refused to let myself get too down about it. I had a fantastic family, good friends, and a job I loved. All things in the world of Delilah Northcutt were good.

“Del, the bride for the Collins/Locklaine wedding called. She can’t make the three o’clock appointment to get a look at a sample bouquet, so she’s sending the groom,” my manager Toni called as I pushed through the door of Flora, precariously balancing my herbal tea in one hand and trying my best not to step on Slim Shady as he twisted himself around my feet.

I suppressed my eye roll as I answered, “Got it.” Dealing with grooms was probably my least favorite part of my job. They only came in two categories, the uninterested and the overly-involved. Both were pains in the ass to deal with. My eyes were on the dog that had managed to all but tie my ankles together with his leash. “Shady, no.” I scolded pointlessly. “Shady, stop. Sit.”

He did
not
stop nor sit. I was stuck in place until Toni took pity on me and came to release me from my poorly-behaved puppy’s clutches.

“So I take it obedience classes were a bust?” she asked, the corner of her mouth hooking up in a grin, causing the ring in her bottom lip to glint as the light hit it. That was one of the things I loved about Toni, on the outside she was all tattoos and piercings and short, spikey purple hair — well, at least purple this week. Her go-to expression was something I liked to refer to as,
bitch, did I say you could talk to me
? But on the inside, she was a total softy. She was like family to me, and she was the hardest worker I’d ever employed.

“Are you kidding?” I took a sip of my tea and moved to stow my bag behind the counter once freed from the leash. “He was kicked out for pooping in the instructor’s hand bag.”

Toni bit down on her bottom lip, trying to keep from laughing. “Did Devon feed him cheese again?”

I sighed and took a sip of my tea, hoping it would help center me. “No. He just didn’t like her. Not that I could blame him. She accused him of sexually harassing a dachshund that was in the class.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “So, doggy sexual harassment. That’s a thing now?”

“Beats the hell out of me. Besides, it was her own fault for leaving her bag on the floor in the first place. It was an obedience class for God’s sake. It’s not like we were there because our pets were well-behaved.”

“Ah,” she cooed, lifting Slim Shady up to eye level. “She just didn’t get you like we do, huh? No she didn’t.” In return for her affection, Shady licked her face.

“If you need me, I’ll be in the back working on the orders that have come in. Holler if anything comes up.”

“You got it, boss,” she called after I’d scooped my dog up and headed toward the rear of the shop. I put him in the little doggy bed I’d set up in the corner, tossed him his favorite plush toy to chew on, and popped my earbuds in, cranking the music up as I got to work.

I pulled in a deep breath, letting the floral fragrances wash over me and smiled.

Today was going to be a good day.

I WAS EXHAUSTED, AND
the headache that had been plaguing me since my neighbor woke me up blasting that god-awful Eminem song didn’t seem to want to go away. I’d been in my apartment for a week, and already, I wanted to kill the woman who I shared a wall with. I hadn’t known it was possible to despise someone you hadn’t actually seen, but after only seven days, 3B had managed to pull it off.

I couldn’t
stand
the woman!

Being woken up at sunrise by a song I couldn’t stand when it was actually popular did nothing but throw gasoline on the bonfire of the bad mood I’d been sporting for the past few months. My assistant had taken to running for the bathroom whenever she saw me coming and buzzing me on the intercom when she had a question, instead of risking my wrath and actually coming to me in person. I’d lost count of how many people’s heads I’d bitten off at the office.

I stepped of the elevator and onto my floor. The key jingled in my hand as I lifted it and unlocked the front door. Heading to the new kitchen, I did my best to ignore the still unpacked boxes that cluttered my space and pulled a bottle of water out of the fridge, sucking down half of it in a few gulps. The eight mile run I’d just put my body through had done nothing to get my mind off the pathetic direction my life seemed to be heading in.

I was a thirty-four-year-old man living out of boxes because it seemed the only thing I had of any importance was my job, and it kept me too busy to do something as simple as unpack. My divorce from the She-Bitch I’d been married to had finally gone through, after months of her screwing around and dragging it out as long as possible, so I’d been able to move out of the goddamned hotel I’d been living in for the past
year
and actually find my own place, only to move in next door to a screaming harpy with horrible taste in music. And the saddest fact yet, I hadn’t been able to get a certain woman in a red dress out of my head since the morning I’d woken up to find she’d bailed on me in the middle of the night.

So, to sum it up, I was a workaholic in his mid-thirties, already divorced, who spent the better part of three months mooning over a one-night-stand to the point that I hadn’t been laid since that fateful night because no woman I’d met since lived up to a woman whose name I didn’t even know. It was laughable, really, just how quickly everything was spiraling around the drain.

My phone rang, shaking me from my miserable thoughts. Reaching into the pocket of my track pants, I pulled it out and groaned at the screen. “What?”

“Well hello to you too, brother.”

Rowan’s chipper demeanor coming through the phone almost made me cringe. Ever since getting engaged to Navie, he’d been insufferably cheerful. Now, don’t get me wrong, I was beyond happy for my twin brother. He deserved a woman who would love him more than life, but when your own marriage ends in divorce because you discovered your wife was a manipulative shrew, it makes that smile slip every so often.

“What’s got you in a mood?” Rowan asked.

“Pain-in-the-ass neighbor,” I grunted. “Haven’t gotten a decent night’s sleep since I moved in here. She even woke me at the crack of dawn this morning. Who the hell wakes up so early on a Saturday?”

He chuckled through the line, making me roll my eyes. “I’m not one to say I told you so—”

“Bullshit, you aren’t!” I barked with a laugh. “You
live
do say ‘I told you so.’”

He was silent for a few seconds, then, “You’re right. I do. And I told you so, Rich. If you’d have just moved into my and Navie’s building like I suggested, you wouldn’t be dealing with this shit.”

It wasn’t that Rowan’s place wasn’t nice. It really was. But after years of having no relationship whatsoever because my ex-wife, Bree had played us both, we were still working on building things back up. There was still a voice in the back of my head that niggled at me, warning not to wear out my welcome when it came to Rowan. I found myself occasionally walking on egg shells just so I wouldn’t risk losing him for another chunk of my life. Discord between siblings was hard enough, it was something you felt on a daily basis, but your twin? Well, let’s just say that was a personal Hell I never wanted to experience again.

“There’s nothing wrong with my building… except for the woman next door trying to make me deaf at ungodly hours of the morning.”

“Is it really that bad?”

“She blares ‘Lose Yourself’ every morning like a goddamned anthem or something. I swear to Christ, Row, if I had ever liked that song, she’d have ruined it for me.”

The asshole had the nerve to laugh. “Well, at least it isn’t Britney Spears or some boy band.”

My jaw actually ticked as I admitted, “Oh, it’s that too. She’s got a very… eclectic taste in music, and she plays it
all the fucking time
,” I drawled out. “If you’re planning on getting me a housewarming present, might I suggest earplugs? I’d be forever in your debt.”

“Speaking of debt…”

I took another swig from my water bottle. “Well that sounds ominous.”

“Navie was supposed to go to the florist today to check out her bouquet or some shit…”
Ah, hell
. “…but she has a rush jewelry order she has to get to Pepper at Fire & Ice by this afternoon, so she asked me to do it.”

“Not seeing where this is my problem.”

“Well,” he dragged out. “She passed the job to me, and I’m passing it to you,
Best Man
,” he spoke with far too much excitement.

“No. Nuh uh! You don’t get to play the best man card on this,” I objected. “You’re the groom, man. What the hell do I know about flowers? I’ll screw something up and Navie’ll cut off my balls.”

“Better you than me,” he mumbled through the line.

“Nope. Not doing it.”

Rowan sighed. “Look, I’m on a tight deadline with my editor or I’d go myself. But I really need your help on this. Just go, pick up the flowers and bring them back so Navie can take a look at the bouquet. Easy as that. Please, Rich.”

Shit
. There was no way I was going to be able to say no when I heard the sincerity in his voice. I let out a long, loud sigh, making sure he could hear just how put-out I was feeling before finally relenting. “Fine. But you owe me, man. I didn’t even give a shit about the flowers at my own wedding.”

“You’re a lifesaver, brother.” I could hear the relief in his voice.

“Yeah, I’m a freaking saint. I take payment in beer.”

“You got it,” he laughed.

“A case, not a six-pack, you cheap-ass. I know you.”

I disconnected the call and looked around my apartment. Well, at least running this errand for Row meant I had another legitimate excuse for getting out of unpacking.